I pulled down the posts about Michael Kelly out of respect for his family. I was concerned about the very small possiblity that in searching for news and information about him they would accidentally stumble across this site. However, since doing so the degree to which people had posted over-the-line comments is being greatly exaggerated by some of my blogger pals on the other side of the aisle. Very few posts were over the line by any measure, and fewer still were far over the line.
I didn't think much of Kelly when he as alive, and don't feel obligated to think much of him now that he is dead. However, I'm a bit annoyed that people who openly mocked the death of Rachel Corrie - a woman with no position of influence who died while using non-violent means to pursue her cause - are now somehow claiming the moral high ground when it comes to appropriate expressions about the dead. The same bunch of people dragged the Wellstone family through dirt in the most disgusting political operation I have ever witnessed.
I don't read Indymedia, which is populated by a motley group of greens, liberals, anarchists, trolls, commies, anti-semites, etc... but I do glance over a variety of other leftie sites, and nowhere have seen the kind of bile spewed about Michael Kelly's death that what was on display at The Free Republic following the death of the great journalist Lars Erik-Nelson (not for the squeamish). For fairness, here's the Democratic Underground thread on Kelly. I won't deny that there are some tasteless things being said - as tasteless of some of the posts on Free Republic - but the majority of people posting there object to such expressions.
...and, I just wanted to add that I felt free to bring this up as the Right - Sullivan, Noonan, etc... - have chosen to use Kelly's death to advance their political agenda. The latter's obit was 75% about Clinton's penis, and the former's was about how Kelly was a true liberal because, you know, he was a conservative.
